Four days later, on the north bank of the Grass River.

Jian Chen wiped the sweat from his face and put his hand on his shoulder, where there was a bloody streak from the rope.

The sturdy clansmen joined him and pulled the birch bark boat with a rope. The wounded children and some of the older people were on the boat, learning to use poles and wood pulp.

Because there were only three boats, and going back against the current, Chen Jian chose to be a slender man on the grass river.

After two days of delay near the first line of heaven, I boiled a lot of salt, salted the meat of the big boar and smoked it with pine branches.

Wandering around the plains of the river valley, I found a few primitive beans and a distant relative of some kind of wheat - wheat is a hybrid, and a mutated hybrid, similar to a fertile mule, and by no means a thoroughbred. What exactly this plant is found will not be known until it bears fruit.

This expedition is quite fruitful, especially the dozen or so little piglets, who have gradually become familiar with the existence of people in the past few days.

More than a dozen piglets were placed on the boat, along with a live sow. The arch was tied with rope, and the four legs were also tied with rope.

If you don't tie it, you can't do it, pigs are born to swim and are much stronger than people. When people come out of the amniotic fluid, they forget about the ability to swim. Most of the current clansmen who are thrown into the river will be overwhelmed by the water, which is far worse than pigs.

These things were thrown onto the boat, and even against the current, they weren't too heavy.

It's just that there is no light burden on the long journey, the sun is scorching, the sweat beads are like beans, soaked into the eyes, and it hurts to kill.

"Jian, it's almost here, and there is Taohe in front of you."

Wolfskin pointed to a hill in the distance, where the people used to hunt. Jian Chen rubbed his eyes, the grass around him looked a little distorted because of the hot air.

"Take a break and get home before dark."

Beckoning the crowd to pull the boat to the shore and secure it. Several aunts immediately dug a pit to boil water and added some salt to the water according to Chen Jian's instructions.

Songluo came over and said, "Jian, why do you have to drink hot water?" Why add salt? ”

Jian Chen was very happy to be asked why, so he put his arm to Song's mouth and said, "Lick it." ”

Song licked it strangely and said, "Salty." ”

Then it dawned on me, looking at the salt water in the jar, it seemed to understand something.

He used to go hunting with his people in the heat, and people often fainted in the sun. The sun was also hot for the past two days, but no one fainted, and he felt that it must have something to do with drinking salt water.

So this question was kept in his mind, and he had memorized a lot of things along the way, and Jian Chen gave him his cloth bag, which contained many blades of grass, and told him what the grass was used for.

Pine looked at the various blades of grass, chewed them one by one, and wrote down the taste. The tribesmen sat around them, laughing and laughing in the shade of the trees, but the wolf skin seemed not to be afraid of the heat at all, and took a stone axe to cut down a few arm-thick trees, and pruned the branches there.

"I'm going to make a bow that sits in a cave and can shoot into the river of grass."

He pointed to the straight trunk of the tree and uttered his words, which drew laughter from the crowd.

He found that the wider the wood, the farther the arrow could be shot, and the more force it used.

And with the thumb hook, the arrow will shoot accurately on the side of the hooker, but it will miss if it is placed on the side of the hand holding the archer; If you hook the string with the middle finger of the index finger, the arrow will have to be reversed, and a groove will need to be carved in the tail of the arrow.

Amidst the laughter of the crowd, he shouted, "Don't laugh, one day my name will be remembered by my children and grandchildren, you wait." ”

Ignoring the good-natured laughter of the crowd, he dragged a few logs and threw them on the boat, deciding to make a few more when he returned.

Jian Chen looked at the wolf skin with a smile, drank two sips of salt water, got up with his clansmen, and continued his way home.

Some people want to go home, and naturally there are people in the family who want to leave home.

Yu Qian'er sat by the river, holding a little wolf cub in her hand, waiting for her brother to return.

The old grandmother said that her brother would come back when the moon was full, so Yu Qian'er always slept late these days.

He drew on the stone wall with the one, two, and three that his brother taught him, and behind the one, two, three, he drew the shape of the moon every night.

The moon on the first day was very much like the boat my brother was riding in, and yesterday's moon was like biting most of the fruit.

The hateful thing is that the gap in the fruit doesn't know when it will be smoothed out, and she wonders if the moon has let some beast eat it? What kind of beast can fly into the sky and eat the moon?

She had a lot of new things to tell her brother, such as the clay bowl made by Cousin Acorn was getting rounder and getting rounder, for example, one of the wolf cubs died without eating, and for example, she pinched some lambs and fawns with mud for her younger siblings to play with......

"That's right, and the little birds we caught yesterday, they don't eat bugs, they don't eat fish."

Pulling his braids, pouting and thinking about the problem, he subconsciously bit the tip of the braid with his mouth, and touched the little wolf cub with one hand.

Although the elder brother is not there, the shadow of the elder brother is everywhere in the life of the clansmen.

Seeing her aunts fishing, she thought of her brother; Seeing her mother boiling the fish into white soup, she thought of her brother; Seeing that the old grandmother gave maple candy to a younger brother who counted to ten, she thought of her brother again.

The tribesmen often wondered when her brother would return, and she measured the gap in the moon with her hand every night, hoping that tomorrow the beast would spit it out.

He rested his elbows on his knees and sighed faintly. The little wolf cub was in her arms, biting her finger lightly, and she hit it and squeaked.

Seeing that the sun was about to set, I had to get up and prepare to catch bugs.

A few figures flashed from the trees in the distance, and Yu Qian'er rubbed her eyes, saw clearly the person walking in front, and ran forward with a cry of joy.

As more people appeared, Yu Qian'er didn't know her, so she was inevitably a little scared. But in the end, he threw himself into his brother's arms, and said what he wanted to say, one after another.

Jian Chen smiled and stroked Yu Qian'er's hair, asking her to go back and tell her family that she was back.

Yu Qian'er looked at the more than thirty people she didn't know, and ran away full of doubts.

"My brother is back!"

The crisp cry of a yellow warbler echoed through the mountains. The old grandmother came out with the people who were weaving, the acorns stopped, the potter's wheel that was spinning in their hands passed, and the people who were digging fern roots and wild vegetables in the mountains also gathered around.

The natural emotions connected by blood are always parted, this is the first time that the clans have separated, and now when they hear the news of return, a little melancholy in their hearts has finally dissipated.

All the people in the clan gathered by the river, and Song looked at such a scene, sighed inexplicably, touched the bones of his mother hanging around his neck, and sighed.

"Old grandmother, this is Song, and this will be our clan in the future."

Jian Chen let loose in front of him, and the family looked at these outsiders curiously.

Song put his mother's bone pendant away, walked up to the old grandmother, and called out in a low voice, "Old grandmother." ”

"Huh! Good boy, we will all be a family from now on. Bluegrass, bluegrass! Bring someone back to cook, and maple syrup? Bring some to the kids! Just go! ”

The tribesmen immediately got busy, the men brought out all the jars on the boat, and the women each held a little piglet, or expressed their feelings in the most primitive way, handing the newcomers some small earthenware pendants or toys to hang around them.

The women teased the new kids, chattering about this and that.

Song felt very relaxed, looking at the hair combed by his people, he felt that he should be like them, but he didn't know why their hair was not so greasy.

Back in the cave, the bonfire had been lit and several large newly fired clay pots were half-buried in the fire. Roasted or boiled, it is filled with different aromas.

Jian Chen showed the jar of salt to the tribesmen, who were very fond of this snowflake-like thing, and dipped a little of it in his mouth with his fingers, and whined happily.

Yu Qian'er took her brother to look at the moon she painted, but the old grandmother opened her hand, ran away with a grin, and hugged a few birds in front of Jian Chen......

Wolf Skin was telling about what he had seen along the way, and Song was telling about what had happened in the past, and the tribe was shocked that there were still tribes that forced others to give away their prey? This is simply unthinkable in their eyes.

The new women soon mingled with the clansmen, and the stove was always the easiest place for women to communicate.

So the dinner was very rich, and as soon as the soup with salt came out, the tribesmen were full of praise.

The roasted lamb is torn apart and sprinkled with a little salt, which has an endless aftertaste.

Today's tastes are finally the most important one, and they are immediately completely different.

Chen Jian looked at the smiling faces of the clansmen, got up and said, "I think, we have to migrate to the lower reaches of the river." ”

No one objected this time, and since the rules had already been broken once, it didn't hurt to break them again.

The salt that Jian Chen brought back, the pigs he brought back, and the honey he brought back...... All these are the reasons for the trust of the clan.

"Grandmother, how much more food do you have?"

"Dried fish and tuber fern roots are enough to eat for six or seven days."

"Well, tomorrow everybody is going to cut down the trees, pick the bark, cut the pine resin."

"Shall we all take a boat?" A few people who had been eager to try asked excitedly.

"Yes, we're all going to be in a boat."

The applause sounded among the people, and someone took out a piece of wicker skin, and whined and played, the sound was harsh and unrhythmic, but there was a burst of applause.

Adults learn the movements of grouse courtship, dance wild and primitive dances around the campfire, and express their yearning for a new life.

Yu Qian'er looked at the cave where she had been living since she was born, and somehow she was a little reluctant. I knew that my brother would definitely make the clansmen live a better life, but there was a moon painted by himself on the wall. Even the stone that had tripped over him was not so annoying at this time.

"What will life be like in the future?"

She thought to herself, but she couldn't figure it out.

After a long time, she let go of these strange thoughts, held two birds, and came to Jian Chen.

"Brother, I caught them by the river, but they don't eat insects or fish."

A few pale yellow, fluffy little birds were held in the palm of Yu Qian'er's hand.

Chen Jian looked at the orange flippers, the flat mouth, and the small bulging ball of flesh on his forehead, and told his sister with a smile that this kind of bird does not eat fish, but only grass.

"And is it delicious?"

"It's delicious."

Chen Jian recalled the smell of smoked goose in his previous life, nodded very surely, Yu Qian'er hurriedly went to grab some wild vegetables picked by his aunt, and the little bird really opened his mouth and swallowed the wild vegetables into his stomach.

The goose is the first of the three birds, and the only vegan among the three birds, don't look at it swimming happily in the water, but it has a pair of webbing that makes the cat jealous.

In the future, the village will inevitably have lotus roots in the lotus pond, and a few white geese floating, which are better than those ducks that eat fish, and there is a little more scenery.

He squatted on the ground, recalling what he had seen and heard along the way, and planned the prototype of the village on the ground with charcoal, full of ambition.